Mister Dilsby

I rage-crash $300,000 drone tankers after realizing I don't have enough gyros and will have to expend monopropellant to steer in orbit.

Well done, have some rep. Good thing you got this out of the way before v1.0, your "pipe organ" would likely play a minor key fugue with the new aero model

Ok, just one more--I have never completed ther Eve Rocks challenge and it's time to do it. Jeb is still in solar orbit trying to intercept Moho, as he has been for at least a year now. The other orange suits and all the *** pilots are still waiting for a window to come back from Duna. So it's up to Kerbfleet's bench to pull this one off. The ships: EVORAMA 180t lander/ascent vehicle: ~10500 surface dV crew of one Kerbin SSTO capable parachute landing, Eve ascent on 6xaerospikes and one KS-25x4 KSS WASABI MARU: 150t interplanetary cruiser 4x LV-N main engines with 2x aerospike auxiliary towing boom, cargo bay, sweet running lights The plan is to launch both ships, dock in orbit, refuel, and catch the next window to Eve. Then Wasabi Maru will drop a rover to the surface to scout a good landing site. Evorama will follow, then hopefully return one Kerbonaut to the Wasabi for the trip back home. At this writing the mission is still in progress and I do not know if it will succeed. Here's an album featuring the two main ships. Enjoy! Next installment will give an idea of the service missions to refuel the ships, and to fix a couple of Kraken-related problems.

Went to Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MOCA) today, and though you all might like this exhibit. It's called "All Utopias Fell", and it looks very much to me like a crashed Kerbal spaceship (modded, of course): You can see the solar panels of course and the collapsed parachutes (which are, apparently, persistent in this version). The interior was closed today, but I've been inside before and it's freaky. Exploring it you can find notebooks and other left-behind items that give some clues of who built the spaceship, why, and how it came to crash where it did. More on the art here: http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=547

VERY excited--the Evorama Mk1 Lander/Ascent vehicle and KSS Wasabi Maru are in Kerbin orbit, tanked up and ready to go. I just need to send up my cargo plane to deliver a replacement rover (first one got Kraken'd) and the mission crew, and I am ON for this challenge! ...from left to right, the Evorama, the Wasabi Maru, and the final drone tankship.

Then maybe the thing to do is help him out, gentlemen. That's the Kerbal way. OP, it sounds like you mean you want the ships to come from orbit, impact the surface, and survive without benefit of lifting surfaces, parachutes, or retrorockets--basically drop a crewed brick from orbit and see what can survives. Yes? You might want to think about a way to rank entries. Mass might be a good one: what's the minimum amount of hardware you can use and still survive? Also maybe specify which capsules/cockpits/cans are acceptable. For example the Mk3 cockpit has a VERY high tolerance, maybe enough to hit Eve surface at terminal velocity. I'd make everyone do it in a Mk1 lander can if it were me This is not a bad challenge at all if properly specified. It'll teach entrants about terminal velocity and design for survivability. I'd encourage the OP to try a few crash landings himself, think a bit about how entrants are going to try to bend/break/exploit, and come up with a short ruleset and ranking system that makes it fun for everyone.

^Was just going to say the same thing. Sorry, but this one isn't going to make it... Tylo is a real challenge, you need 6000m/s dV to get up and back, and a high enough thrust as well. I like to have 1.2-1.5 TWR myself: see http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Cheat_sheet for a map giving delta V requirements to and from everywhere. Good luck! This mission isn't a total loss, you're a better designer and pilot now for having tried this a few different ways.

He doesn't have the Poodle staged in (display shows 120kN available from the two LV-Ns). Hopefully that's on an action group or he can stage it in, then he'll have 340kN available. Hm. Hey OP, when you descended on Mechjeb was the Poodle online?

Hear hear.. "Turn off your targeting computer!" And yeah, that's a very high orbit to come down from, you are giving Tylo lots of time to accelerate you. Mechjeb might have an easier time landing you from a lower orbit, say 20km or so--but I really do encourage you to try it manually. You might burn a bit more fuel than the autopilot would, but you'll be a better pilot afterwards.

Indeed. I was thinking about this some more, and the easiest way by far must be to intercept in solar SOI and nudge toward Duna aerocapture. Remember, it costs over 1000dV to go from Kerbin SOI to Duna, and a ship the size of the Kranefly can only give a Class E about 150m/s before needing a refuel. If you pick the right asteroid it should be possible to hit Duna on one tank...IF you pick the right asteroid. The trouble is that you can't play around with patched conics and maneuver nodes to get an intercept solution until you have an active ship in similar orbit or attached to the asteroid. If I were to do this (and I am in the middle of tanking up for an Eve attempt, so no probably not until after 1.0) I might send a bunch of fast drones to scout some asteroids between Kerbin and Duna; drag maneuver nodes until I find a promising candidate, then dispatch a Kranefly to finish the job. - - - Updated - - - Yes, this works, but the asteroid's momentum WILL swing it around considerably... in my experience the oscillations will damp out in a reasonable time, provided you are not trying to correct by more than a few degrees at a time.

Couple of comments: --You probably have more engines than you need for the mass of that craft. A good rule is one turbojet for every 8-12 tons. --You may not have enough intakes. Some people like to "airhog", I think 1 ram air or shock cone +2 big radial intakes per engine, or the equivalent, is a good number. --Your center of lift is way at the back which could be the reason you're having trouble on takeoff. Moving the wings forward should help: putting canards on the front may help even more. Be careful where your center of mass is relative to COL, of course, and be sure that your COM is still forward of COL when the tanks are empty (you can check this in the SPH by right-clicking and temporarily emptying the tanks) There are some very good comprehensive guides out there, but you will learn faster and IMO have more satisfaction if you just fly the ship and pay attention to what goes wrong. Then with a little thinking and maybe some help here on the Forum you will get a real deep understanding. Good luck!

Well this explains a lot about why my large spaceplanes always need tuning for placement of the rocket engine... I went crazy for a while, "perfectly" snapping mainsails or whatnot on the axis only to find that the rocket thrust would flip the ship over once it was high enough that aero control surfaces couldn't compensate. Standard practice for me now is to work in sandbox, hyperedit to deep space and thrust every engine to confirm straight line... SPH gizmos very helpful of course to get it right.

You're welcome. I'd encourage you to see what you can do with the asteroid you have, and yes to try and improve on the Kranefly. I daresay you'll learn a lot that way. If you really do want to get an asteroid to Duna, think hard about the dV involved... you now have some idea of how much dV you can put on a large rock with a reasonably sized towship. You also know something about the challenges of steering a large rock. If you can manage your goal, that will be a very rep-worthy mission report. Come to think of it, I might try and drag a class-E to Duna myself with the Kranefly, just to show it can be done

You mean you're trying to steer a 3000t asteroid using RCS and reaction wheels? Um, maybe someone else's ship can do that, but mine certainly cannot. Best practice here is to set your maneuver node, undock, then fly the ship to redock with the asteroid such that you are aimed in the correct direction to pull the asteroid on course. Then be certain to set the klaw for 'free pivot' and thrust away.

This one is I think a very good idea. A high elliptical orbit would keep the asteroid and hauler within range for easy refueling (if needed), but minimize fuel cost on the transfer to Duna.

Well you know you won't get an "encounter" like the ones you get for a planet or moon, right? You can only get an "intercept" since the asteroid is a Part that has no gravity. That said--how far along are you getting before giving up? When I do it, I typically start looking for an intercept once reaching solar SOI, on a parallel course with the target rock.

A ready-to-fly hauler capable of intercepting and towing a Class E asteroid: ...full album and craft file here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/114595-A-BadS-Asteroid-Hauler-the-Kranefly-Mk-E

EVE, alarm clock, hyperedit (for sandbox only!) Kerbal Engineer. I don't use part mods as I like playing the same game as most people I meet on the Forum, and I much prefer piloting myself to running Mechjeb.

Once you've 'solved' KSP, IMO the thing to do is build up your kerbals' presence in the solar system to fit your imagination of what a proper spacefaring society should have. For me, it's like building a model railroad. I put big stations in various orbits, land bases, then create a fleet of ships designed to use those facilities. Now it's not just about getting somewhere, it's about getting there in style with a mature space transport system. For example: rather than launch a single multistage rocket for a Mun landing/return mission, I deliver crew to my LKO station in a small SSTO designed for the purpose, transfer them to the intermunar shuttle, bring that to the Munstation, "check out" a lander from the pool, go visit an arch or the memorial, back to the station, take the shuttle back to Kerbin orbit and catch the next outgoing SSTO to home. Anyway, that (and challenges) are what keeps it fun for me.

You marked the thread "answered"--does that mean it worked?

Ah! Well, in that case you may have a center of mass/center of thrust problem. Try this: in the VAB, pull all the lower stage parts off until you are left with the ship that spins at 70-100km. Right-click on your tanks and adjust the fuel to whatever levels you have when the problem occurs. Also right-click on any engines that do not get used when the problem occurs, and reduce their thrust to 0%. Now when you click the icons in lower left of the window to display center of thrust and center of mass, you will see how the vectors line up at the critical moment in your flight. If they are not aligned, then that will explain your spinning and you can move things around to avoid the problem.

I think the main problem is that all the atmospheric drag is happening on the upper stages. That's where most of your mass is, and remember the game calculates drag as a function of mass. So especially when the lower stage tank is near empty, the drag vector is like a string pulling the top part of your ship towards the ground. In other words it's like you built an arrow and put all the feathers on the tip. You may be able to fix this by putting some fins on the bottom of the rocket... that will give you more drag on the back end and help to keep the ship pointed in the right direction. But ultimately I think you will have to redesign the upper stage so that the drag from all those hanging bits is managed. Moving everything closer to centerline may work... if it were me, though, I would launch those big rovers separately and assemble the thing in orbit. Good luck!

Yes, exactly like that. You can have your rep now

Nice! But how could you not include SRB-based pyro?!!

Yeah, I like to use it to give new Kerbals some XP for solar SOI, and to collect samples from captured rocks. Feel free to stick an OKTO under the forward (shielded) port if you don't want to send a crew, it's got loads of solar